Chapter Twelve

"Hey, Charles. How was the party?" Day one of pretending my closest friend hadn't exited the natural world to avoid talking to me.

"Oh, uh, it was okay, I guess. Kinda boring." Lies. Had to be. I decided then that if our friendship couldn't be saved, I could at least try and use it to my advantage before I lost the chance. I tried to be subtle.

"Was Ashley there?" I asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh," I dismissed it with a quick shrug, "no reason." I waited a moment. "Did she say anything about me?" Subtle.

Charles half-shrugged and shook his head. "No. Why would she?"

I hadn't expected Ashley to have actually mentioned me, but for Charles to ask why she even would, that was too much. He knew how I felt about her; I assumed he knew. I'd mentioned her more than once when our conversations turned to girls. He had to have known.

"Adam?" Charles asked. I snapped back into the moment, shot him a glare, and walked away. There seemed to be a lot of that going on lately.



Charles was waiting at our lockers after the day's last class. I would have opted to turn around and just go home, but I had a test the next day and studying I had been putting off for weeks; I tried not to look at him as I approached. While I was putting in my combination, Charles offered up his explanation. I ignored him.

"Look," he told me, "I don't know if you're mad about what I said about Ashley - I mean, that's what it seems like; I can't think of anything else - but if that is what it is, I didn't mean it like that. She just didn't say anything about you. I was just answering your question."

Daniel Smith had come over to his own locker and settled between us. Careful to avoid Charles' eyes, I looked down at Daniel, grateful for the distraction. "Hi, Daniel."

He looked up quickly. His reflexes were both impressive and disheartening. I imagined they had likely been tuned by years as the target of a steadily growing number of small projectiles. "Oh, hi," he replied.

"So, you ready for that history test tomorrow?" I asked; Daniel had the same American history class I did. Fourth hour, just after lunch.

"I think so," he said. "I've been taking a lot of notes. I'm still going to study tonight."

Charles was staring at me, unamused. It wasn't hard to see I was making a point of ignoring him.

"Well," I said, "I still need to study too. If you want to come to my house later, we can study together."

Daniel glanced over at Charles, back to me, back to Charles. Charles had still been trying to explain himself when Daniel had come over. Daniel seemed to know he was being used as ammunition. He stared into his locker. "Um, yeah, okay," he mumbled.

"All right," I said, "just come over whenever." Still refraining from looking at Charles, I closed my locker, turned, and walked away. Definitely a lot of that going on lately.